Although Shi Xiong hadn't seen the mine disasters in those small coal mines in his previous life, he did not miss the relevant reports.

　　 The mine disaster is really unattainable. Once a mine disaster occurs, almost a litter will die. As long as the miner goes down, almost no one can escape the harvest of the death sickle.

Obviously, the mining time for this saltpeter mine of the Xiaohe tribe is not very long, and with the current purely manual mining method, the mine has not been dug too deep.

　　 Therefore, now that the most basic support is done, at least a large-scale collapse can be avoided.

　　 This saltpetre mine is really important to Shixiong. At least Shixiong believes that if nothing happens to this saltpetre mine, it will probably have to support its own plan for more than ten years before conquering the western plateau of the New World.

　　 He naturally didn't want to see this saltpeter mine in a mine disaster.

　　 Huo Ni is the key to the heat weapon in the future. Without this thing, the heat weapon is just a fire stick.

　　 Although the main method of obtaining nitrate in Europe has become the nitrate method, which is to use the urine of humans and livestock to make potassium nitrate, Ishikuma is really unwilling to use nitrate.

　　The taste is one aspect. The most important thing is that as long as Shixiong thinks of the gunpowder made by himself, the main raw material is extracted from the urine of people and livestock. That kind of nausea is not mentioned.

　　 The people in the tribe would definitely not use the nitrate field, that is to say, as long as the nitrate field is used to get the nitrate field, the stone bear will definitely take the lead in taking the first batch of nitrate.

　　Moreover, the output of this natural saltpeter mine is much higher than the amount of nitrate obtained from the saltpetre.

　　 Therefore, the most important thing is to preserve this saltpeter mine as much as possible.

　　 Lei Ying obviously listened to Shi Xiong's remarks. After he came out, he kept asking the support how to fight and how to do some safety measures.

　　 Shixiong doesn’t know much about this knowledge, but have you never seen a pig run without eating pork? Thanks to his previous life in the era of the information explosion, he still knew some things in this respect.

　　 For example, how to do support, for example, the mining area should not be too large, for example, do not mine when it is raining heavily, Shi Xiong still told a lot about the future old man.

　　Because there are a lot of saltpetre involved in the shipment, it must be impossible to finish the shipment in one day, so Shixiong and the others lived in Xiaohe tribe for two days.

It seems that Hongyun, the high priest of Kabru, likes the Xiaohe tribe very much. Although most of the people in this tribe are Chekashas, ​​in the face of these Chekashas who are bored with war and hide in the mountains and old forests. People, even Hongyun can hardly resent these people.

　　 If you leave out their Chekasha identity, these simple people are actually almost indistinguishable from the clansmen of the Gaoshu tribe. They all have the same yellow skin, black hair and black eyes, and they all say almost the same things. What's the difference?

　　 Only then did Hong Yun understand why his guardian lord had to take a high look at this Xiaohe tribe.

　　 Not only is the woman he valued is the princess of this tribe, it is also not only the Xiaohe tribe that is rich in the main raw material for making gunpowder, the guy in the great bear is the people in this tribe who value most!

　　 Although Hongyun does not understand social economics, he does not understand what is called a demographic dividend. But as a Kabru sacrifice, she knows the importance of population to a tribe and even an ethnic group.

　　 If the Cherokee ethnic group had a larger population, it would not have been driven out of the Great Lakes area by the Iroquois and the Delaware. By the same token, if the number of Powatans is more, the Powatans who have lived in this mountainous area for hundreds of thousands of years will not be driven away by the Cherokees.

　　Similarly, if the Gaoshu tribe wants to return to the scale of its heyday, even surpassing the former glory of the Cherokee high priests, then the tribe in this tribe is indispensable.

A tribe of three hundred people can’t be compared with a tribe with three thousand people. It’s like the chiefs of the Cherokee royal court. The population is just a few thousand people. No one in other tribes can shake the chiefs. One family.

If according to the plan of the Great Bear, there are in-laws through the transaction, firmly tie the Xiaohe tribe to the Gaoshu tribe, and then slowly merge with this tribe, and then gather back the tribes who had previously separated. , Even if the people of the Xiaohe tribe can't be seen, the scale and influence of the Kabulu sacrificial clan can immediately rise to the point where they are side by side with the chief clan.

　　The restoration of the former glory of the Kabul sacrificial tribe is just around the corner!

　　 Hongyun's purpose is to investigate the people of the Xiaohe tribe.

　　 Now it seems that these people make Hongyun very satisfied.

　　 A large amount of saltpeter was transported out of the valley by the people of the Xiaohe tribe, and then loaded on the ship in batches. This process lasted two days in total.

The refined salt and the ironware that the tribe leader pulled from the Gaoshu tribe made the tribesmen in the Xiaohe tribe very high in character. They had never seen such exquisite salt, and had never used such a tough steel knife, so For maintaining long-term transactions with the Gaoshu tribe, these tribes also like it from the bottom of their hearts.

　　 Twenty thousand pounds of saltpeter was evenly loaded on four ships. This was the first batch of transactions.

After the boat was installed, the leader of Lei Ying led the senior officials in the tribe to entertain Hongyun and his party. Although they were all ordinary barbecues and stews, because of the success of this transaction, the people of the two tribes were all Very happy.

　　 Some members of the Xiaohe tribe even spontaneously performed their tribal dance, which made the atmosphere even more exciting.

　　 Facing Ailang who is about to leave, Bai Yun is also reluctant to leave. But there is no way, she knows that this big man who will become her man in the future has a lot to do, and she shouldn't be his fetter.

　　 But after the banquet was over, the two people still found a corner where there was no one, Qing Qing, I, I have been a long time

　　 Early the next morning, with gloomy weather, four armed inland river transport ships set sail again and descended down the Hayworth River. However, because they will become sailing upstream after entering the Tennessee River, they will return to the High Tree Tribe in four to five days.

　　 And after returning to the Gaoshu tribe, Shi Xiong couldn't stay idle either.

　　 After this batch of saltpeter is transported back, it needs to go through certain processing methods before the real fire salter can be extracted from the saltpeter.

　　 This kind of naturally formed saltpeter cannot be used directly to make gunpowder. It needs to be purified before it can be made into gunpowder!

　　 China’s ancestors invented black powder a long time ago. It is precisely because of the invention of black powder that changed the world’s war pattern, black powder has been recognized by the world as one of China’s four great inventions.

The origin of black powder can no longer be studied, but there is no doubt that when the alchemists in China who advocated the cultivation of immortals were thinking about how to refine alchemy, they accidentally put together the purified potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal. Moreover, the ratio of these three raw materials was quite the same, and as a result, the world's first black powder broke out at once.

Among the three raw materials of 　　 black gunpowder, saltpeter is undoubtedly the most important. The saltpeter used to make black powder is actually potassium nitrate.

　　 However, whether it is the nitrate produced in the saltpetre or the saltpetre produced in the saltpetre mine, there are a lot of impurities in it. If these impurities are not removed, the power of the black powder produced will be greatly reduced.

Perhaps this kind of black powder with little power didn’t matter hundreds of years ago, but now, before other powders were invented, the power of black powder is directly related to the range and power of muskets and artillery, so now this At that time, when making black powder, not only must it be made strictly in accordance with the best ratio, it is also necessary to purify the raw materials, so that the power of the black powder will reach the maximum.

　　 is like the rock salt of Xiaoyanshan. If it is not purified, people will die if they eat it.

　　 The saltpeter produced in this kind of saltpeter mine, if it is not purified, the black powder that comes out of it will also become a joke.

After 　　 the saltpeter was pulled back, Shixiong started to direct the tribe to purify the firedust.

　　 It is not difficult to purify high-purity potassium nitrate from saltpeter. As a pseudo-army fan in the previous life, Shi Xiong knew how to purify nitrate.

　　 The first thing to do is to smash. This is similar to salt making, that is, saltpeter is crushed first, and then the crushed particles are ground to be finer, the finer the better.

　　While crushing saltpeter, we must also prepare plant ash.

　　 This plant ash is the key thing. Whether high-purity potassium nitrate can be purified depends on plant ash.

　　Because there is no chemical laboratory equipment, Shixiong cannot distinguish whether the saltpeter from the Xiaohe tribe is sodium saltpeter or potash saltpeter, but whether the saltpeter is sodium saltpeter or potash saltpeter, it is absolutely correct to add a certain proportion of plant ash when purifying it.

　　Because the main components of plant ash are potassium carbonate and potassium sulfate, when plant ash and saltpeter are put together, the potassium ions in the plant ash replace the sodium ions in the nitrate to produce potassium nitrate. In addition, the carbonate ions and sulfate ions in the plant ash combine with the calcium and magnesium ions in the nitrate soil to form insoluble salts and precipitate, thereby removing impurities such as calcium and magnesium.

　　 In fact, the process of purifying nitrate is a series of most basic chemical reaction processes.

Of course, plant ash cannot be used casually. The best plant ash is the ash obtained after burning buckwheat stalks, cotton husks, cotton stalks, broad bean stalks, rapeseed stalks, tomato stalks, sorghum stalks, corn stalks and other plants. , Their potassium content can reach 10-15%. Although other plant ash can also be used, the effect is not ideal.

　　 There are so many corn stalks in the tribe, so just bring a lot of them and burn them.

　　 Put the ground saltpeter powder and the black plant ash into a large pot at a ratio of 8:1, and then add water. When adding water, you can't add cold water. Instead, add hot water with a temperature of about 75 degrees Celsius. The amount of water does not exceed these materials.

　　 After the hot water was added, the materials began to dissolve. Because of the plant ash, a pot of water was dark.

　　 For the guardian lord and the clansmen "juggling", the clansmen are still very happy, because all the clansmen know that once the guardian lord starts to juggle, then the tribe can get a good thing.

　　 It’s the first time Master Guardian conjures a trick. There is too much refined salt in the tribe that can’t be eaten.

　　 This time Master Guardian was about to perform tricks again, and the tribesmen naturally responded with a bang.

　　 So, even though there is a pot of dark hot water, the people of the tribe are nothing strange. The reason why a conjurer is a conjurer is a process of making the impossible possible, and various elusive phenomena will naturally appear in this process.

　　 After adding hot water to the big pot, Shixiong asked the two tribesmen to hold spoons and stir constantly, so that the plant ash and saltpeter were fully dissolved in the water.

　　 It takes at least 15 minutes to stir. After the stirring, all the water-soluble ones are dissolved in the water, and the water-insoluble ones will naturally become sediments.

　　 Then this pot of dark water began to filter.

　　 Funnels and filter cloths are available in Xiaoyanshan, and that set is enough to deal with filtration.

　　 The dark water was filtered out through the filter cloth and funnel, and the remaining residue was isolated. These black water is nitrate water.

　　 Pour the nitrate into another big pot and start to heat and boil. This step is also called nitrate.

　　 When boiling the nitrate, keep stirring to prevent sticky bottom and splashing.

　　 With constant heating and stirring, the nitrate in the pot will continue to evaporate. When about two-thirds of the water has evaporated, the solution at this time has become relatively viscous.

At this time, Shixiong used a wooden stick to dip some viscous solution, and as a result, the solution immediately condensed into a lump when it came out of the pot~lightnovelpub.net~ This change made Shixiong nodded in satisfaction, and then ordered Lift the pot to the side to cool naturally.

　　 During the nitration process, the temperature is always very high, and the solubility of potassium nitrate will become very large at this temperature, so it will not precipitate. On the contrary, impurities such as sodium chloride and potassium chloride are precipitated because of their low solubility at high temperatures.

However, the solubility of potassium nitrate solution will decrease rapidly as the temperature decreases, until it is naturally cooled to 30 degrees Celsius. At this time, the agricultural solubility of potassium nitrate will change the most due to the influence of temperature, and the decrease in temperature will cause a large amount of Potassium nitrate precipitates out quickly. However, at this temperature, the solubility of salts such as sodium chloride will become very small and will not precipitate again.

　　 At this time, filter again, and the solid obtained is potassium nitrate crystals.

　　In fact, this process is a process of chemical reaction and physical change. The potassium ions in the plant ash are used to replace sodium ions, and then potassium nitrate is formed. Then, with the help of the different solubility of various salts at different temperatures, pure potassium nitrate crystals are finally precipitated.

　　 Of course, the purity of the primary purification may not be so high, but it doesn’t matter. The big deal is to perform the same operation again on the precipitated potassium nitrate crystals and perform the secondary purification.

　　 As long as it is not too troublesome, potassium nitrate crystals with extremely high purity can be obtained by this method.

　　 In fact, Europeans in this era also used this method to purify potassium nitrate on a large scale. It’s just that they are not using saltpeter ore, but using the nitrate soil that is mixed with human and livestock urine in the nitrate field to purify it.

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